Broken Voices
by Rainbound Angel
Summary: Red didn't expect Purple to lose his hearing. Can he get over feeling sorry for Purple and understand what it's really like for him? Can things ever be the same between them? Bittersweet ending.
1. Ka-Blew-Ey

Hello Kiddies… DeadLegato here. It seems Rainbound posted the ROUGH DRAFT by mistake. Dun worry. I stole her password and now I'm fixing it.

We don't own Invader Zim. We don't own U-Haul. If they sue all the authors [DeadLegato, Rainbound_Angel, SharpasSticks, and ChibiKuroneko] they would get a sharpie pen and a pair of puppy chewed Zim sandals out of the bunch of us. 

****

Red paused in front of his mirror, pulling the deep black bands of his bodice down over his hips. If there was any feature on his body he hated, it was his disproportionately large hips. He'd wanted to get plastek surgery, but nooooooo, Purple said that wasn't the right way to go about it. Nevermind that Red personally knew that Purple had his antennae shortened at one point, after getting tired of constantly receiving courting presents from enamored male Irkens. He whirled around. Is it just me, he wondered, or is my butt getting bigger? He sighed audibly. It was almost time to leave, and he wasn't anywhere near ready.   
Lounging nearby on a plush, blue velvet chair, Purple had a pair of padded black antennae phones on. He would occasionally look up to cast amused glances at Red, but mostly he kept his attention to the book-screen lying in his lap.   
Red grabbed Purple's sound pieces and pulled them off his head. "Tell me the truth... does this robe make me look fat?" Red asked, spinning around for the millionth time in the uniform he'd always worn. 

After a pause, Purple said "yes," returning his jewel tone eyes to the screen without a second thought to Red's paranoia. 

"I knew it!" Red whined. "I've got to change!" 

"There's no time," Purple shouted, pointing at the wall clock. "We should have left five minutes ago. They made their way easily to Red's cruiser, twisting down the snake like halls of the Massive. Red had long ago requested that he be the driver when the two of them went on trips, since Red didn't trust the driving of even a chauffeur. Purple had put up a fight at first, as he'd spent most of his young life as a Voot racer, but eventually, he simply decided that letting Red drive was easier than going through a screaming match with him every time they went out. 

Purple adjusted the gray belt that was hugging him tightly across his chest, tugging to make sure that it wouldn't badly wrinkle his uniform. His reflection in the dome of the ship was pale and ghostly, staring seemingly back at Red with black eyes. Red shivered involuntarily.

"Can we listen to my disk?" Purple asked, holding up his disk player. "It's new, I haven't heard all of it yet." 

"Too late!" Red cried, flicking a black button and blasting noise that passed as Irken rap music so loud that Purple let out a little squeal of "YI!" and clamped his hands over his tingling antennae. 

"Did you have to do that?" Purple asked sarcastically. 

Red, in response, started loudly singing "Whomp, there it is!" 

The ship blasted across space. Purple clung to the "Oh poop" handle on the ceiling most of the entire trip, more because he knew it annoyed the hell out of Red than anything else "My flying is not that bad," Red grumbled. 

"I agree. It's worse," Purple quipped, grinning like an idiot at Red. Red was about to retort, when he noticed something out of the corner of his ruby colored eye. 

"PUNCH BUGGY! NO SLAP BACKS!" Red screamed, punching Purple hard on the arm. 

"Ow," Purple cried. "No fair! I couldn't see it cuz your big, fat carcass was in my way." 

"Oh, you want to make something out of this? Don't make me pull this ship over, young man!" 

Purple and Red burst into hysterics, laughing so hard they nearly cried and Red nearly sideswipped a parked space bus as he gasped for air, clutching his aching ribs with one hand and the controls with the other. It was funny how they could fight and fight and fight without ever really getting mad at each other. That's the kind of fighting that's unique to siblings, Red thought amusedly as he tried to avoid rear ending the slow ship in front of them. "Stupid traffic," he muttered. 

"We should have left earlier," Purple taunted, sticking his stripped, serpentine tongue out at Red. 

"Someday your face will freeze like that!" Red snapped as he easily landed the ship in the docking bay. They'd come to Conventia to join a panel of other leaders on the subject of peace between their empires. In actuality, it was over a dispute between the Planet Jackers and the Planet Uhaulers, and they'd agreed to let the debate occur on Conventia since it was neutral ground to the two in the fight. 

"This is going to be boring," Purple sighed as he jumped over the side of the ship, rather than simply floating down. 

"Hey, maybe they'll start throwing chairs like last time," Red said with a shrug. Both nodded in agreement that a few broken limbs, well not their own, but broken limbs on others would make the debate livelier. 

Red spun around in his foam and leather office chair until he got dizzy and nearly hurled on the off-pink agenda sheet set lightly in front of him. Purple checked his watch again. The Planet Uhaulers were late. "I don't think they're going to show," the Planet Jacker representative, a pale blue female said as she began to pack up her vinyl suitcase. 

"Very rude of them," Purple said, shaking his head so that his antennae swung. He shuffled lightly through his papers, sighing in boredom. Everything was dead silence, until a new sound slowly made its presence known. "What the...?" Purple asked. 

"It sounds like something's rolling," Red replied, standing up. Indeed, something was rolling. A small silver glove was making its way slowly across the floor in a perfectly straight line, not deviating at all. By this time, the entire delegation was on its feet, staring as the metal orb made its way towards them. 

It rolled to the feet of the Planet Jacker representative. The gathered leaders and negotiators were already beginning to back off by that point. She was about to take a step back, when a little flag popped out of the top. "This is what we think of your Peace Talks," it stated in bloody, smeared red letters, even darker then tallest Red's eyes. 

Red didn't have time to think beyond "Oh, hell," as the resulting explosion, a hot white burst of painful light, threw him from his feet, tossing him across the room, where he limply came to lay in a pile of debris, bleeding from the shrapnel embedded in his torn green skin. 

***

There, I fixed it. -DeadLegato 


	2. Miracle

We still don't own anything. On with the fic with four authors! 

Red leaned his groggy head to the side, pulling half-heartedly at the thick, gauzy covering over his aching eyes. Florescent yellow light shone into his delicate orbs, made even more sensitive by the effort of recovery, and he whimpered like a sad smeet. He rolled slightly onto his side, dislodging the cold pack from his forehead. It fell to the cold ground with a dull slushy noise. The last few days had gone by in a parade of doctors, a haze of consciousness and blackness. Finally, after only Irk knew how long, he was beginning to come back into his senses. 

A pretty young nurse with deep green eyes came in and picked up the fallen coldpack, studied a chart, and left again. Since he could see no clock, Red had been keeping time by the nurses that came in to study the readouts on the beeping, clicking, and humming machines hooked to his torso and arms. That made it five past the nurse, he thought with a short snicker. Well, five that he could remember. Sometimes they came in while he was asleep, which seemed to be more often than while he was awake.

His skin was a patchwork of grafts donated by hundreds of young Irkens. They'd rushed so quickly to the hospitals to donate after learning of the bombing that the hospitals, even those not serving the tallests directly, were swamped under. Moving sent shocks of pain through his spine and limbs, so he avoided doing it, but it was frankly boring to simply stare at the view screen. Especially since it was the shopping channel, and he had no remote.

He hadn't seen Purple in days. He hadn't seen anyone besides the parade of medical workers, most of which were frankly frosty towards him, since he'd begun to come back into awareness. At first, he could simply open his eyes. He was getting better now. He'd even managed to sit up without screaming in agony earlier that morning.

He wondered how Purple was doing. Poor little Purple, he thought as he shook his head. He doesn't handle pain as well as me. I hope he's okay. Red knew Purple was alive, at least, because he heard the doctors mention his name in whispers in the hallway. The things they said rarely made sense to Red, though, and that didn't sit well with the young tallest.

For some reason, though, everything in this hospital seemed to be covered in a shroud of mystery. Maybe it simply had to do with keeping reporters and other undesirables away from him and Purple as they healed, defenseless. He still remembered overhearing two older ruby-eyed doctors as they poured over his charts. "How are we going to explain it to him?" the heavier one had asked.

The slender one rubbed his eyes. It was obvious they didn't know that Red was watching them carefully from under his slightly parted eyelids. "We'll worry about it when the time comes. For now, they both simply need rest." 

Explain what? Red finally felt well enough to summon a nurse to bring him a palmtop computer, on which he started up a game of computer solitaire. He was so engrossed in the game that he didn't hear a third doctor, a green-eyed female, enter the room. He didn't even acknowledge her presence when she came and sat on the end of his bed. Only when she finally reached out and touched his computer did he notice her. He set the game aside, trying to sit up straight in his bed. "Hello," he said.

"Greetings. I'm Doctor Ereen. I've been overseeing the surgeries on your fellow tallest," she said. Her voice was thick with an accent from the high areas of northern Irk. "I'm sure you've been wondering about how he's doing. He's up and moving around now."

"Great," Red said, flexing an arm. "So am I!" Red paused. "So… uh… where is he?" he asked, looking around the room as though there might be a flash of gray smoke followed by Purple magically appearing. 

"He's over in Annex Five, to make it harder for tabloid reporters. They can't spy on both of you at once," she said, but her eyes were down and her voice muffled. That, Red had learned, was a hint that someone was lying. He narrowed a single bright eye at her. Annex Five… Red knew that section. That was where they kept the critical cases.

"Please don't lie to me," Red said sternly. "How bad is he?"

"He's actually ahead of you in getting back up and walking. He's moving around on his own, spends most of his time reading, is eating and sleeping fine. There's just one thing that you need to know. I…"

"Doctor Ereen!" a voice cried from the doorway. Both Irkens in the room jumped. It was the older doctor that Red has seen earlier, the one speaking in whispers that were nonetheless heard as clearly as if over a loudspeaker. "You're needed immediately!"

"But I… oh, all right. I'm coming. I'm sorry, my tallest. I'll be right back," she said, racing out of the room on the elder's heels. Needless to say, she didn't return, giving Red plenty of time to think. He wanted to know what she'd meant to tell him before being interrupted. He wanted to know why, if Purple was doing so much better than he was, Purple had yet to come and give him even so much as a quick, friendly visit. Heck, Red was so bored he'd even take a nano-second long and hostile visit. He knew he'd been in the hospital too long because he could no longer notice the smell of germ killer wafting in the air. As the staff would put it, it was the somewhat repulsive "stink of clean."

Unfortunately for all the hospital staff concerned, a bored Red is a creative Red. He was feeling well enough to sit up, but not enough to walk. Now, this would probably have kept any normal Irken in bed, but by no means will I venture to say that Red is a normal Irken. He somehow managed to unhook every last monitor from his body without setting off a single alarm, even the heart monitor, and that took considerable skill to do through the wall of pain that shocked through his body when he turned heels over head to reach where the plug connected in the wall. This might be a fitting punishment for the monsters who did this, he thought acidically as he fished for the plug. 

"My tallest?" a confused voice asked. He hit his head on the nightstand as he tried to sit up quickly. He hoped silently to the Irken gods that the back of his hospital gown hadn't been open. Judging from the red look on the girl Irken's normally green face, he guessed that it had. "You have a visitor," she said quietly.

Red's smile grew three sizes when he saw Purple quietly slink into the room. His antennae and throat were heavily bandaged, only slightly more so than his arms. He was wearing a different hospital gown than Red, one that pulled around the body twice and fastened in the front. I'll have to remember to get one of those, Red thought bitterly as Purple looked at him, his head cocked to the side.

"How are you doing?" Red asked, speaking first.

"Okay," Purple whispered. His voice sounded hoarse and raspy, like he was speaking through a nail file. "I just came to see you because… well… I'm having another surgery tomorrow, and I was worried…" he said quietly, resting his slender frame on Red's bed. 

[_Here we are, safe at last. We can breath a sigh, it seems the storm as passed. Through it all, no one knew, that all the tears in heaven, would bring me back to you.]_

Red lightly touched his associate ruler's arm. "Hey, I'm sure everything's going to be okay. You've made it this far, right? You're even in better shape than me.

__

[Oh, no one I know imagined we would make it, but it only matters that we both believe.]

Purple studied his folded hands. "The doctors kept telling me that you weren't going to make it. I almost cried myself to sleep every night. It got so horribly lonely, I didn't think I could make it if you couldn't."

"But now I'm safe, and we're going to get those bastards that did this. Together," Red said energetically, waving a fist in the air. Purple seemed to perk up.

__

[Oh, you and me, we're a miracle. Meant to be and nothing can change it. Mountains move and oceans part when they are standing in our way. You and me, we're a miracle. Angels stand watching over us. And heaven shines upon us every day.]

"I can't imagine life without you, actually," Purple said. "We've been together since school. No one ever imagined there could be two tallests before we came along. They couldn't find even the tiniest of a unit difference between us."

"That," Red said as the nurses began to hook back up everything he had pulled off, "is fate, my dear Purple."

__

[Every time I felt near defeat, you were there for me, by my side completely. You give me strength; you set me free.

"I waited for news that you'd get better," Purple said brightly. "They kept telling me it was hopeless, but then, I cheered when they told me you might be ready for visiting today. I even had them postpone the surgery. They wanted to do it today, but I said no, because I wanted a chance to talk to you."

"Hey, don't freak out!" Red cried, laughing as he waved Purple off. "Neither of us is going anywhere."

__

[Because of you, I'm more than I can be. When I'm with you, the world is ours to reach for. Together there is nothing we can't do. You and me, we're a miracle. Meant to be and nothing can chance it. Mountains move and oceans part when they are standing in our way. You and me, we're a miracle. Angels stand watching over us, and heaven shines upon us every day.]

"This is my last surgery," Purple smiled, bouncing a little on the end of Red's bed. "They just need to pull some debris out of my neck, as you can see by the bandages. It's not really even dangerous. You're right, I was a fool to be so worried. That's why I need you. I'd have worried myself into an early grave without you."

__

The chance was so unlikely, that we would ever be, two stars among the heavens, destiny brought you to me. You and me, we're a miracle. Meant to be and nothing can change it. Mountains move and oceans part when they are standing in our way. You and me, we're a miracle. Angels stand watching over us, and heaven shines upon us every day. 

"Who would have imagined that we'd be in this situation today? But frankly… I'm glad I don't have to face it alone," Red said, fluffing up his pillow while Purple sprawled across the foot of his bed. 

Purple looked at the clock. "Hey, I gotta go now, but I'll see you tomorrow," he said, standing up and straightening the hospital robe before following his attendant nurse out of the room.

__

[You and me, we're a miracle. You and me, we're a miracle.]

Two tallests was indeed a miracle. Having both tallests survive a bombing that killed nearly everyone else who had been in the room was nothing less than a miracle as well. There was no other way to explain it, other than the match between them had been arranged by a force higher than Irken or human can yet, or probably ever will, understand. As Purple left the room, Red couldn't help but wonder how much longer the miracle would hold out. 

****

WOOO! CONTEST! 

First person/Irken/whatever to review with the movie soundtrack that song is from gets to be in this fic! And it doesn't count if you do a google search, foos! I know I can't stop you from doing it, but please don't. Unless nobody gets it… though I'm sure SOMEONE has to. 

Here is a hint for you: the movie involved psychic cat thingies. 

A public service announcement, not from me, since I hate review begging, but certain *coughs loudly* people don't. Nobody reviewed our tallests vs george bush fic… *sniffles* well, cept a few nice people.


	3. Not Letting You Die

[Invader Bast… who are you? You won the competition, but we don't know anything about you!] 

Red lay on his back, tossing cards one by one into a worn out old top hat. It was his way of passing time. He was bored. Normally, he'd go annoy Purple whenever he happened to be bored, but Purple wasn't around. He'd tried finding something to watch on the television, but other than daytime talk shows there wasn't really anything on. Red would have even gone so low as to watch a talk show, but the feature of the day was "I'm fat, and women love me." That was not really something Red cared to see, as his stomach was already a bit flippy from the hospital food.

The gray door to his private room was slowly swung open on squeaky hinges. Standing there, framed in the light spilling in from the outer hallway, was the bright-eyed invader Bast.

"My tallest?" the invader said nervously, looking around the room like [he/she?] didn't really want to be there. "There's a doctor here who'd like to speak to you." Then the invader was gone, faded into the hubbub outside the sanctuary of Red's room. Red grinned slightly sideways as the familiar doctor Eeren. 

She didn't return his smile. She looked somewhat gray, like she'd been put through a rather long ordeal. Slowly, she advanced across the room, picking up a set of flowers and turning them around, as though trying to recall some sort of distant memory. "I need you to make a decision," she said softly, placing the flowers back on the nightstand. It wobbled a bit, so she steadied it with one finger. "Do you want us to save your brother's life?" 

"What?" Red asked, confused.

"There was a piece of metal imbedded in one of the major nerves in his neck. We don't know that much about Irkens, but we do know that if we pull it out, we're going to break the nerve. Since our knowledge of your species is somewhat limited, we don't know what kind of damage it's going to cause."

"Can't you just… leave it in?" Red asked. He was truly incredulous, but his voice simply came out as dull as the inside of an eggshell. 

"There's more to it than that. We found this whitish mass growing on the side of the nerve. We don't know what it is, but… but it looks cancerous," she finally finished. "That's why we're asking this now. We can let him expire in his sleep and save him the pain, or we cut the nerve and see what happens. You understand there is a substantial risk here. He could lose all cognitive function," she whispered, neatly placing a file on Red's lap. He flipped it open to find a paper lying inside. The top of the paper read "Permission to end suffering" in dark, blood red letters.

Red surprised the doctor. He threw the folder across the room, striking the vase of flowers she'd been fondling and knocking them with a crash to the ground. The water from the vase flowed slowly across the floor, making what to an Irken was a trail of deadly acid. The doctor simply watched, realizing her heart rate had doubled since he'd done that.

"I don't CARE what the risks are," Red hissed. "I'm not going to let you kill him!"

For the next three hours, Red paced back and forth outside of the recovery room. Several people walking by asking him when his baby was due, and more than one of them ran away whimpering from the glare he game them as a response. After frightening away curious alien number seven, Red simply flopped down in a pastel green plastic chair, his head clutched in his claws. He pulled at his antennae, willing himself not to get hysterical. 

"Everything is going to be okay… everything is going to be okay…" he continually muttered to himself. A couple of dark blue-skinned creatures decided they'd be better off sitting on the opposite side of the room when they heard his mutterings, but he didn't really care. 

Finally, Red decided that he couldn't take the waiting anymore, and pushed past the "staff only" sign in a flourish of royal self-importance. A couple of nurses looked like they might stop him, but then changed their minds. After all, what they were doing was all too important to bother with the intruder. It took Red a few tries, but he finally managed to find Purple.

He was lying on his side, his eyes shut tight and his breathing deeply rhythmic. The thin hospital sheets were pulled up over his head, but Red could still see one bandaged antennae sticking out from under the white blanket. Purple's hands were crossed over his face, almost like the hands of a corpse. Red shuddered at the thought, lightly touching the younger sibling's smooth skin.

After a moment, he sat down on the bed beside his brother, prying Purple's hands apart and placing one in his lap while he stroked the other one. He'd assumed that Purple was so sedated that it wouldn't disturb him. He'd assumed wrong, as Purple's deep lavender eyes began to flutter. Purple looked sideways at Red, confused and oblivious that anything but a routine surgery had happened. Cautiously, he squeezed back when Red touched his hand.

Red jumped, turning to his brother. "You're alive!" he cried, throwing his arms around Purple and holding him tight. Purple began pounding on his back, struggling in his grip. "Oh, sorry," Red said, letting Purple go. 

Purple looked confused by Red's actions. He looked back and forth, then touched Red on the face, drawing his fingers along Red's lips and down his throat. Red narrowed one rectangular eye in worry. What in the world was Purple doing? Purple continued to touch his throat and mouth, until Red finally found it wise to ask. "What are you doing?" Red asked, grasping Purple's claws and pushing them away from him.

Purple looked down, then up again, then all around the room. Something seemed… wrong. He looked like he was in some sort of daze, like he'd just come out of a smoke filled club. Red remembered the words of the doctor, but they did him little good. He didn't know what to do. He wouldn't have even known where to start.

Purple then made a shivering motion and rubbed his arms with his hands. "You're cold?" Red asked. "I'll find you another blanket," he said, getting up and digging through the closet. When he turned back with the blanket, Purple was digging through the drawer beside his bed. "What are you doing?" Red asked. Purple didn't even acknowledge his words. "Fine, ignore me," Red sighed, lying the blanket down on top of Purple's legs.

Purple had managed to produce a sheet of paper and a dark blue pen from within the stand. He was scribbling something on it in a hasty, sprawled handwriting. That was funny. Purple always had such neat, perfectionist handwriting whenever he did something. Unless he was upset, Red realized. Being upset always made him sloppy.

Gesturing wildly, Purple handed the tablet over to Red. After giving his brother a confused glance, he turned his crimson eyes to the sheet.

It contained only one short, biting sentence. "Why can't I hear you?" 

***

To the person who asked about being in this fic: Sure. You can be a reporter or something. Tell us about yourself. 


	4. The Feel of your Voice

We do not own Invader Zim. We don't own anything. DeadLegato owns a sword, and that's the most expensive thing ANY of us has. So suing us will do no good. She had the search parties out looking for the rest of us, huh?

This fic is now written by Rainbound Angel, DeadLegato, and SharpasSticks, who wants you to know her name means "Sharp As Sticks," not sharp sticks in an unmentionable place. As for this being slash, well, I would LOVE to make it slash, but one of the earlier chapters says that they're siblings. Of course, this is only my opinion, and may not be reflected by my co-authors. How does this work? Not including when characters talk to each other, we each write one paragraph and pass it on. So enjoy!

Red sat quietly in the patient cafeteria of the bustling hospital. The forms walking past him all seemed to blur together as he stirred a small cup of light yellow pudding. A drop or two of it had spilled out and across the gray and blue marble table, dripping onto the floor. He had pudding on his shoe, but he didn't notice or care.

He was alone. He had no clue where Purple was. Red had been discharged from the hospital that morning and told that an aide would be sent for him when his brother was ready. So he simply sat in the cafeteria and spent most of the morning trying to slide down a single cup of pudding.

He put his head down, not caring when his antennae dragged through the spill. His eyes not only hurt; they burned. He'd been crying again, but there was no way in heaven or heck that he'd ever admit that, not even to Purple. He only cried alone in his room in the dead of the night, when he could be certain that only the sheets heard his choked sobs. A tallest was strong in the face of adversity. A tallest didn't cry. A tallest didn't need patting on the back and cradling. A tallest didn't need… anyone. 

But there was Purple, right before him, always there. The doctors could find absolutely no reason why he wouldn't talk, but he didn't. He didn't even make a sound. Red was deadly terrified that he might make Purple laugh when the two of them were together, lest he have to watch Purple's silent laughter. It frightened and disturbed him on so many levels, like someone had turned on the mute button and he just couldn't turn it off. 

Then there was the issue of sound. Even though Purple still looked the same, still hovered gracefully the same, and still devoured a submarine sandwich like a hyena in the same way, but there was no sound. They had been eating in a restaurant just the previous night while on temporary leave from the hospital. One of the waiters had dropped a tray of dirty dishes. Everyone in the restaurant had jumped and looked over at the commotion- except Purple. Purple had his back to the whole thing, and just kept eating. There was no way he could have known.

It was disturbing, Red thought yet once again as he laid his head in his clawed hands. A caterpillar woman had tried to ask Purple to press the button for her floor in the elevator, even though she could have easily done it herself. She'd gotten angry, tearing into him and accusing him of being rude. He hadn't even noticed, as he'd been turned away from her. She'd been just about to reach out and grab him to get his attention when a young nurse had intervened. "Don't. Can't you see the band on his wrist?" she'd asked the impatient woman. "He's deaf."

From what Red heard of the story, the woman had turned immediately pink all over the parts of her face that weren't covered in. She'd started apologizing to Purple, who still had no clue that anything was even going on, then realized what she was trying to do. She'd shook her head. "Poor creature," the nurse reported that she'd said. "So young and pretty to have had his life cut so short."

That was exactly how every one of the Irkens that had visited them in the hospital was acting. They talked about Purple in the past tense. They kept talking about how kind he "was", and what a tragedy it had been to lose him. They would hush their conversations when he approached, like he was fully capable of knowing that they were whispering about him. The ironic thing was that he did know- it showed in the veil of pain that was constantly hidden behind the violet tint in his eyes. Of course he knew that they'd all started treating him differently since he lost his ability to hear them. They patted his shoulders, or opened doors for him. If they saw him reaching for something, they'd intervene and get it for him. He wasn't allowed to do anything for himself, as they were all frightened that his lack of hearing had also nullified any ability he had of doing anything for himself.

"My tallest?" a young voice asked. Red looked up to find himself staring into the scarlet eyes and curled lashes of a young female council member, one Jenni by name. "The council sent me to have a world with you," she said. "May I sit?"

He nodded briefly and watched her pull back the bluish chair, then seat herself. "I'm sorry it had to be me. I'm sorry I have to say these things. The council- doesn't feel that Purple should return to his seat as a council leader."

Red sat up, pudding dripping messily down the sides of his face and getting into his robe. He rubbed it off as he stared, surprised, at Jenni. "What?" he asked.

"They're uncomfortable with him being there if he can't hear or speak. They don't think he'll be of any use to us if he can't hear us, or participate at all."

Red sighed, leaning back and studying the ceiling. "I suppose. I suppose… you're right, but it'll break his heart to learn that they don't want him there."

"The council doesn't even want him back on the Massive. He has special needs to be attended to now. There is a place in the lower Andrios system, an entire planet built to deal with those who have needs other than those of mainstream society, that he would perhaps be safer and better cared for on."

Red immediately bristled, rising up as tall as he could. His spine crackled as he did. "Now, you listen to me. The worm people of Xeros can't hear at all, and they built an entire society. I can deal with it if you're going to bar Purple from the council meetings, even though it will break his heart, but I can't allow you to… ship him off… to some weird planet for freaks!"

Several people in the cafeteria stared, some because of the noise levels, others because of Red's frank lack of political correctness. Red sank back down in his chair. "I couldn't do that, not to Purple. He means… too much to me."

"If you care about him, then shouldn't you do what's best for him? Even if it hurts you?" Jenni asked. Her young face showed only earnest feelings and caring, something Red rarely saw in the face of a council member. He had to appreciate that, even if what she was telling him was poison in his veins.

"I don't know…" Red replied softly.

"Perhaps you could at least take a look at it on your way home," she suggested. "I'm sorry, my tallest, but I have to go. I'm here to make a presentation on snake bite medications, not only to try and tell you what to do with your life." She stood up. "Best of luck on your decision, my tallest."

"Thank you, Jenni. Thank you for your honesty."

She winked, and then headed off with her books tucked tightly under her arm. Red sighed out loud. "What am I going to do?" he asked.

He'd fallen asleep at his table when he felt a gentle poke on his shoulder. Snorting like a rhinoceros, he lifted his head, and promptly fell out of his chair with surprise. There stood Purple, his eyes bright and innocent. His hands were clasped in front of his body, nervously twitching. A half-smile decorated his pale face. He still had thick bandages around his neck, but other than that, he looked almost like his old self.

Red stood up and nodded to Purple. He gestured towards the door, which prompted a nod back from Purple. Purple simply followed, silently hovering, as Red led the way out to the front doors, where a taxi shuttle had been scheduled to arrive for them. He couldn't help but notice how Purple was looking all about, like everything was brand new to him. Of course, being unable to hear, it was probably more based on trying not to run into anyone than trying to actually see something new in old surroundings. Red felt a thin hand on his shoulder, clinging to him like a lifeline. He didn't have to look back to see who it was.

Purple remained relatively still through the ride back towards Irk, their first stop. Red wasn't sure that Purple was ready to return to the Massive yet, and wanted to give him a break to rest and regroup his thoughts. Through the ride, Red watched Purple as Purple watched the stars. His hand was on the smooth, cold glass of the taxi, his eyes distant as they reflected the stars from the depths of space. The familiar pain was creeping back into them.

As Irk came into view, Purple suddenly turned around to face Red, grasping his hand in his. Through pleading eyes he gestured to the notepad he'd been keeping since losing his voice and his words. "I can feel the vibrations of the taxi's radio when I touch the door, but I can't hear the sounds," he wrote.

Red paused, then took the pen from Purple. "It's like the whole world is on mute and you can't turn it off, isn't it?" he wrote back. Purple nodded, appreciative that someone seemed to understand. Without warning, he threw his face against Red's chest, his body shaking as silent sobs escaped from him. A tear fell onto Red's hand, sliding off his skin and onto the seat.

Not knowing what else to do, Red wrapped his free arm around his young sibling and held him tighter. The may have been able to still the pain in Purple's body, but there was no comfort he could give for the silent mental agony Purple must have been enduring.

The ship touched down lightly on the surface, beside three tall spires wrapped in thick metal rods. These were the elevators into the bowels of the planet itself. A short ride down, and they would board a train to be carried to the palace at the center of the heart of Irk. Red resisted the urge to hold Purple's hand and coddle him as they boarded the elevator. After all, one didn't have to be able to hear to ride an elevator, right? 

The train ride was short, and would have been uneventful if not for a brief moment of awkwardness when the conductor had asked Purple for his ticket, and Purple had been unable to answer the request. As soon as a guard explained who, exactly, the passengers were, the conductor ran from the car and was not seen again for the duration of the trip. Poor guy must have been pretty embarrassed, Red thought as he stared out the windows at the black streets of Irk. Had he and Purple really been absent from their own planet so long that the citizens had really forgotten what they looked like?

Irk remained as he had left it. The underground cities seemed to gleam with lights from a distance. Only when you got closer did you see the trash blowing through the streets from the gigantic air-circulating fans attached to the ceilings. Only when you looked closely could you see the starving homeless citizens huddled in the dark allies, military surplus rags covering their slender frames. 

Life on the Massive was so different from life on Irk that sometimes those who had been on it for too long forgot that not everyone was a soldier, or that not everyone even had a job to pay their bills. They forgot the people who remained behind, supporting their distant military. They forgot the trials and tribulations that came with being a citizen of Irk. What disturbed Red the most, however, was that they forgot the joys. As Purple slept, he watched a couple of young natural born smeets, so different from those genetically hatched for the military, through a window. They were playing some kind of game that involved spinning rapidly around and then falling down. It looked like fun.

"I've forgotten what fun was," he mused out loud, even though there was no one nearby who could hear his words. "Sure, kicking around the military and eating nachos is nice." He looked over at the sleeping Purple. "But when was the last time something I did made you giggle until you were out of breath? When was the last time we saw the simple joy in lying on our backs and letting time pass? I'd almost forgotten how precious our lives were, until I almost lost you."

Purple opened his eyes then, looking quizzically up at Red. He'd seen his mouth moving. He made gestures to indicate that he wanted to know to whom Red was speaking and why.

"No one," Red wrote in Purple's notebook. "Just talking to myself."

Purple nodded briefly, pulling his thin blue cloak around him. The underground caverns that housed the Irken citizens remained consistently windy, but comfortable enough. Two seasons a year found the Irkens intermittently drawing on warming cloaks if they intended to be outside at night. One season found them wishing they could strip naked and lie in the streets. Only one season was just right. That was what the naturals knew as the birthing season.

Red sat down beside Purple, slinging an arm around him to protect him from the cold outside. Purple yawned noiselessly, lying his head on Red's shoulder. Red jerked a bit when he did. Red couldn't help it, even though he wanted to. He wished Purple would say something, make some noise… he'd even settle for a belch or a fart. The silence was so heavy in his chest that it threatened to smother him.

The palace sprawled out before them. It had been carved right out of the black stone of the cave in which the city had been placed. The windows were lighted internally by cold chemical reactions and sodium lights. A fine sheen glittered over the palace. It was said to be the sweat and tears of all the Irkens who had died protecting it from the first invasion Irk itself had ever had to endure. That was why they now marched forward with their own invasions. They couldn't risk such a blood letting ever again.

The guards stood tall, raising their electric weapons in the air as Red and Purple passed by, their cloaks drawn tight against their bodies. The wind seemed to push right through their metal chest armor and bite at the tender flesh beneath. Purple released his hold on his cape by accident, and it flew out behind him and flapped wildly. He paused, studying it peacefully, then continued on to the palace without drawing it closed. Red couldn't help but wonder why.

There was only one royal chamber, as there was usually only one tallest. Red indicated, via paper, that Purple should take the bed. Purple tried to argue, but Red was insistent. "Are you treating me special because I'm… what I am?" Purple wrote on the sheet, studying Red for a response.

"I'd be a fool if I lied to you," Red wrote back. "Yes." 

Purple studied the note, betraying no emotion as he did. Then, he wrote. "Thank you for not lying to me," he wrote back. "I will take the bed, if it's what you want." Red nodded. It was. 

Red found himself wandering the gardens, having changed into a button front cloak with openings for the arms. It blew about his body in the wind. The air circulating fans were off. This was not the time for them to be working. This was not the time for anyone to be working. It was night, the time for sleeping.

Then why am I not sleeping, Red asked himself as he wandered through the corridors of the garden. Only a couple of night-blooming flowers could be seen. The rest were closed for the night, or could only be smelled. Red lifted his head and tested the air, twitching his antennae slowly as he tried to take in everything. A couple of nearby insects were making their mating calls, and a small group of them were interested in hovering around one of the brighter lights lining the path.

Red turned a corner in the garden to find Purple sitting on a carved stone bench beside a field of blue ferns. The wind made them wave like an ocean, even though neither Red nor Purple had seen an ocean to make that analogy. Purple was oblivious to Red's approach, instead lost in the rocking motion of the grasses.

He wasn't dressed for the weather. He was wearing only his light nightgown. His shoulders and arms were bare, exposed to the elements. The wind blew past his face, making his antennae blow from side to side. He'd lost most of his ability to move them, and thus simply allowed them to do so. His face was tilted upward. Red could see wetness glistening on his cheeks and running down his neck.

Red paused in the archway. Should he? Should he approach Purple, or should he simply leave Purple to his solitude. Too late, the decision was made for him as Purple looked down, their eyes locking for only a second before Purple looked away. He seemed embarrassed.

Red moved slowly over, taking a seat beside him on the bench. They sat side by side, neither daring to disturb the silence of the night. Cautiously, Red reached over and squeezed Purple's claw. After a moment of nothing, Purple squeezed back and rose to his feet, the night shift rustling against the stone path. Turning back to his notebook, he wrote, "I used to love the sound the swaying plants made." Then, without another written word, he was back down the pathway with marvelous speed.

Red paused, watching him go. There was no point in going after him. Nothing he could say could be heard by him, let alone condole him. Red sank back down onto the bench. Funny, he hadn't even noticed the sound the plants made. It was… relaxing. 

Then it hit Red. Racing after Purple, he caught up with the slow moving tallest easily. Grasping Purple tightly by the wrists he drew him back to the grass. Then, holding his arms tightly, he took a step over the boundary and into the grass itself. Purple's eyes widened and he reeled back. "Nonsense," Red cried, pulling Purple towards the grass. "We're the tallests. We can go off the path if we want." With one more mighty pull, he threw Purple into the grass.

Purple sat up, looking around in shock. He started to run, but Red caught him and held him. Taking the notepad from his twitching associate, he hastily wrote an explanation. "You can't hear the grass, but you can feel it." Purple looked at Red in surprise, astounded by his quick wit. Then, with a silent laugh, he threw himself back in the grass and lay still.

It tickled against his arms and legs. It brushed past his face. It made him squirm and laugh. Red simply watched. Purple was discovering the world all over again, just like a newborn smeet. Being deaf didn't change who he was. It simply meant that he was going to have to take things differently.

Purple seemed to understand this. "Thank you," Purple wrote back on his notepad. "I feel so much better."

Red took Purple's claws in his own. Then, speaking slowly to let Purple read his lips, he stated "We're going to get through his. Soon, we return to the Massive and get the bastards who did this. And-" he paused. "We learn to live again."

===

Well, we intend to let that be the end. Why? Because we all have too many other fics in progress to keep RP-ing this one out. 


End file.
